Chapter Text
Ever since childhood, Byleth had known that he wasn't normal. Then again, he wasn't really sure what 'normal' even meant. All he knew was what people told him.
"You don't smile much."
"You're not very talkative."
"You're a good shot with that bow! Most kids wouldn't even be able to draw the string."
"You really like food, huh?"
"Oh, come on! That was funny! You're the only one who didn't laugh."
"Whoa. You don't have to be so blunt."
Even as he'd gotten older, he'd noticed that others in the mercenary troop would focus on the strangest things and make comments about other people about how they looked or how they'd 'never impress their soulmate if they went out like that.' Byleth didn't understand it. He didn't understand the concept of looking good for others and he only washed up because he liked being clean. He didn't care if he smelled nice for someone else, but he didn't want to wallow in a bad smell after a particularly sweaty training bout, either. It was gross.
He was lucky if he combed his hair with more than his hands in the morning—or ever. He didn't understand why people would groom their physical appearances for others. He'd received a number of comments about his cute face and solid abs, but so what? He only had muscle because he wanted to be strong enough to be useful to his father, thus maintaining a thorough workout so he could handle a blade, bow, or even a fistfight, if needed. And what good was a 'cute face'? Why did that matter? His eyes worked, so did his nose and mouth. His ears could hear just fine—better than most people's, he'd gathered—but what made one person's face 'cuter' than someone else's? And why did it matter?
Then there was that other word they tossed around.
'Soulmates.'
He wasn't entirely sure what the word meant, but it was supposedly a life-changing thing to find yours. Supposedly, the goddess split souls in two or more pieces so they could fit in a human body or something—hell if he paid attention to the scripture behind it—and now each soul fragment was left to wander Fódlan until they found their missing piece or pieces.
When someone did find their soulmate, it was supposed to be instant recognition through skin-on-skin contact. Even something as innocent as touching hands could ignite that spark, though Byleth wasn't really sure what made one kind of touch more innocent than others. However, when he asked why all of the other mercenaries wore gloves—except for Pax and Micah, who shared a tent at night—if this skin-on-skin contact was so coveted, they laughed and explained that you couldn't go around just touching everyone to see if they were their soulmate. It had to be an act of fate. It was considered to be bad manners to not wear gloves if you hadn't found your soulmate yet. It made you look desperate and pathetic. Or like a standoffish jerk.
Byleth had only been more confused.
They had gone on to say that finding your soulmate was supposed to be the most amazing feeling and it couldn't be easily described to those who hadn't experienced it. According to Micah—whom he now understood was soulmates with Pax—it was like getting struck by lightning, but in a good way. Like the electricity under your skin sent ripples of excitement and energy through your body, making you feel alive. Everything just felt right when he was with Pax.
He didn't think anything sounded good about getting struck by lightning, especially after that one time he'd been hit by thunder magic. He made sure to dress extremely modestly after that, covered in layers so only his face was visible. He'd rather not get electrocuted when someone touched him.
Jeralt had been sitting nearby and only shook his head, then told Byleth that he didn't need to worry about it. Not everyone was even guaranteed to find their soulmate and he didn't have to think too hard about it if he didn't care one way or the other. Maybe it would happen, but maybe it wouldn't. When Byleth asked if Jeralt had found his soulmate, he'd just given a sad smile and replied that Byleth had a mother at one time. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he figured it was a 'yes' since Jeralt didn't always wear gloves.
…
When Yuri was a boy, his mother had told him stories of soulmates. He would listen with wide, innocent eyes and proudly declare that he would one day find his soulmate and they would be happy forever.
When he was a little older, the elder came to live with them and would tell him tales about the many soulmates he'd met on his travels. Many were happy, but not all. Sometimes, their pride would make them convince themselves that their personalities wouldn't mesh well and they would fight. Some chose to be apart because it was what they felt was best. They denied their soulmate and suffered for it. When little Yuri—before he was called Yuri—had asked what that meant, the elder smiled and pat his head before asking how Yuri would survive if he decided his right hand wasn't a part of him.
He'd tried going a few days without using that hand to see what the elder meant, then reported back that it was difficult. Though he could still do most things with his left hand—something the elder called 'ambidextrous'—he realized that he kept forgetting that he wasn't supposed to use his right one. He'd be in the middle of helping his mom with washing the dishes, then remember he wasn't supposed to use it, then tried to figure out how to dry the clay bowls with one hand. It was really, really difficult.
The elder smiled and said that's kind of what it's like to try going without your soulmate. Once you realize they've entered your life—as Yuri was aware he had two hands—it was difficult to go back to life without them. It could be done, but there was no real reason why anyone should. Even if they didn't get along with their soulmate, they were still another piece of their soul and they were meant to fit together. The elder had been very good at explaining things and had taken a handful of wafers, broken them all in half, then shuffled the pieces before asking Yuri to try to put them back together. He'd tried for a while, eventually finding that only the halves that were broken from each other would fit together.
The man had smiled warmly and explained that was how soulmates worked. Everyone was a piece of wafer, searching the world for the other piece or pieces of their biscuit. No other pieces would work except for the ones that were originally a part of them. The analogy was silly—imagining people were like wafers—but it had helped Yuri to understand what made soulmates so special.
Then the elder died and took Yuri's childhood with him as he'd ventured out on his own at the age of eleven to try to ease his mother's burden, found himself in Adrestia, and saw all the ugliness in the world. He wasn't even thirteen when he was first touched by a pair of greedy hands that wanted him to be theirs. As soon as they had their way with him, they discarded him into the next pair of hands. He was thrown from one to the next and, initially, he'd hoped one such pair would belong to his soulmate so they would stop discarding him like refuse, but, as the year and four moons of that treatment went on, he grew jaded. The coldness of the world led him to deny that soulmates were even real. He didn't want to think that his mother or the elder had lied to him, but, if they did exist, then all of these people shouldn't be so desperate to touch a child when they should be patiently waiting for their soulmate.
He felt used and dirty before he was even fourteen and found himself adopted by Count Rowe. He stopped wearing gloves—refused to—regardless of how impolite it made him look. He wouldn't feed into a system in which he couldn't believe.
To protect his reputation, the count told others that Yuri was his soulmate so that it didn't seem as though the child he'd taken in was an impolite mongrel. During his three and a half years with the man, he only felt more and more betrayed by the promises of happiness from the elder and his mother as the count gradually started to believe his own lies and came to truly believe that Yuri was his soulmate.
He felt even more used and dirty than he had at the hands of the Adrestian nobles.
Then he'd managed to escape to the Officers Academy and, with the help of the archbishop herself, was relocated to the grimy, hidden underground known as Abyss in order to keep an eye on one of her subordinates in exchange for freedom from Count Rowe. She had supposedly informed the count that Yuri had killed some of the knights while on a mission in order to protect friends—which he definitely hadn't done as he made sure his people never got in the church's sights—and he'd been executed by drowning in the Airmid as his punishment.
He was free.
And he would never again be shackled.
Even though he'd seen one of his classmates during his time in the Blue Lions and some of his own people find their soulmates, he continued to laugh in the face of the concept. He still refused to wear gloves, and very rudely cackled when Constance called him a 'lowly, grimy cretin,' then replied that she had no idea just how low and grimy he was. She could judge all she wanted.
Sure, he could just tell others that he'd found his soulmate, but that defeated the purpose. He wanted people to know that he was rebelling against their ridiculous concept of soulmates. Otherwise, he'd just wear gloves and be done with it. No, he wanted them to see that he thought it was nothing short of laughable and that everyday was him daring fate to prove him wrong.